Types of body representation
Matthew R. Longo · BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) · 2015
Our body is an essential component of our sense of self and the core of our identity as an individual. Disorders of body representation, moreover, are a central aspect of several serious clinical conditions. A large and growing literature has therefore investigated the cognitive and neural mechanisms by which we represent our bodies and how these may become disrupted in disease. In this chapter I will give a brief overview of six types of body representation: (1) the body image, a conscious image of the size, shape, and physical composition of our bodies; (2) the body schema, a dynamic model of the body posture underlying skilled action; (3) the superficial schema, mediating localisation of stimuli on the body surface; (4) the body model, a model of the metric properties of the body underlying perception; (5) the body as a distinct semantic domain; and (6) the body structural description, a topological model of the locations of body parts relative to each other.